


Doubt

by Schattenriss



Series: The Contours of Shadows [16]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Humor, Comfort/Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Dorian's POV, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 03:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17418080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenriss/pseuds/Schattenriss
Summary: Even powerful mages get the blues—will Dorian be able to cure Kai's?





	Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place a few months after the end of Hidden, and contains some spoilers for it.

[](https://i.imgur.com/kkT7NhZ.png)

Leaving the streets of Minrathous behind, I closed the front door with a sense of relief. The committee meeting had dragged on long past the point where anything useful was going to happen as two members held us all hostage while they sniped at one another. Funny how the job description for magister never mentioned committee meetings.

I called, “Amatus? Are you home?” but no one answered. I checked the console table in case Kai had left a note—he often did if he was going to be out for some time—but the only things resting there were the newspaper (opened to Thalia Tryphena’s column, _Minrathous After Midnight_ ), a pen and notepaper, and a single grey suede glove that appeared to have been chewed. I removed my coat and vest, and considered options for occupying myself until Kai returned.

I made my way to the study, energizing the lights with a thought. The house was unusually silent, though it could simply have been that I was unused to getting back at that time of the evening. Normally I could count on Ferox to greet me at the very least, but even our cat was nowhere to be seen. Pouring myself a glass of wine, I looked out the study window. A storm was threatening, but so far it was all just windy bluster, much like some of my colleagues on the education reform committee.

As I sipped my wine, the first fat drops of rain began to fall. That could explain Ferox’s absence—he hated thunderstorms, and always seemed to know when one was about to happen. He was undoubtedly hiding. A far-off rumble of thunder confirmed our cat’s predictive abilities. I wondered where Kai had gone, and hoped he wouldn’t get caught in a downpour.

Behind me, I heard a small clattering of nails before the clatterer reached carpeting. An attention-getting squeak followed. I said, “Hello, Swivet. Something bothering you?”

Our chocolate-brown nug gave what I can only characterize as a dire trill and looked at me expectantly. I took another sip of wine and said, “That either means you think you should be fed again—in which case you’re out of luck because I know you’ve eaten—or Kai’s doing something that doesn’t include you.”

He made the noise a rusty hinge would make had it learned to be demanding. I raised my eyebrows. “It’s serious, then? Have you lost your stuffed cat? Are we out of cookies?”

He walked a few steps toward the door then turned back to me with a fussy squeak. We’d gone through this before—he wanted me to follow him. For a nug, he’s quite clever. He wouldn’t let me alone until I obeyed, so I said, “Lead on, my fine fellow. I’ve nothing better to do at the moment anyway.”

I fully expected him to lead me to the kitchen, but he surprised me, going instead to the little-used staircase at the end of the hall. It led up to a fanciful room some resident had constructed long ago—an elegant, but sturdily built cupola atop the townhouse that was windowed on all sides so one could look over the city and, on the north side, out to the Nocen Sea itself. There wasn’t much in it but two comfortable armchairs with a small table before them and a couple of low bookshelves. I rarely went up there because the thought normally didn’t occur to me. We mostly made use of the second floor balcony in good weather and the room was just remote enough to feel impossibly far to travel to and from.

Which, now that I thought about it, made it an ideal spot for my amatus to hide when he was sulking. Swivet was standing at the bottom of the staircase, managing to look impatient though I couldn’t tell you how. “Is Kai up there?” I asked.

Swivet gave an emphatic squeak, adding a glissando of clicks as punctuation.

“He’s sulking, isn’t he? What in the world has he found to sulk about?”

Swivet didn’t appear to know. What _was_ apparent was the stairs were just steep enough that he couldn’t climb them easily, thus his frustration at Kai’s hiding place. 

“Very well, I’ll check on him, shall I? I think it’s best I go alone, if you don’t mind. Perhaps he’ll be happier if I bring him beer.” Swivet agreed that was likely. Not that it was a good thing to encourage Kai’s drinking when he got depressed, but I knew him well enough to know he was already doing so. I’d get on him about it if I didn’t do the same thing.

With Swivet at my heels, I made the trek to the kitchen, where I liberated half a dozen bottles of beer, one of wine for myself, and a cookie for the nug. When we reached the base of the staircase, I handed him his cookie and said, “Wish me luck.”

Swivet gave an encouraging squeak around his cookie, trusting me to fetch his beloved master (though I wonder at times who’s truly in charge between the two of them). I ascended the narrow, steep stairs to the landing, pausing to knock on the door and say, “Kai? Are you in there?”

After a few beats of silence, he said, “Yeah. Come in if you like.” 

The room was nearly dark, only the ambient light from the city illuminating it. Here and there, a break in the clouds would allow in a wash of light from the larger moon, which was nearly full. Kai was slouched in one of the armchairs, an open beer in front of him on the small table. He was wearing his usual black trousers, a long-sleeved black pullover shirt, and high leather boots (black, naturally). This wasn’t indicative of his mood; I’d be far more concerned if he _wasn’t_ wearing black.

I deposited the other bottles atop one of the bookshelves, taking the wine with me as I sat in the chair next to his. “I brought fortification.” I poured myself a new glass. “Your nug alerted me to your absconding to unreachable climes—or should that be climbs?”

He blinked. “Swivet?”

“We have another nug?”

He gave me a flash of a smile that settled back into a sulk, took a drink and returned his attention to the view.

“What’s wrong, amatus? Has something happened?” I didn’t have to fake the concern in my tone. These days, Kai rarely gets depressed, so the fact that he was worried me.

“Happened?” he repeated as if the word was a new flavour he was tasting. “No. I suppose not.”

“Anything you can talk about?” There was reason to ask that. Without going into gory detail, some years ago he’d made the rash decision to take on a geas putting him in servitude to the elven goddess Mythal. I’d advised against it, given a few elven gods, Mythal among them, were not merely distant figures of myth, but very much alive and interfering in the affairs of modern Thedas. He did admit afterward that it was not one of his better decisions. She’d emerged from hiding at the beginning of summer and made it clear that Kai was still expected to perform a service for her at some point in the future. I’d made the logical leap that he also wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it.

He shrugged. “I guess.” 

Not Mythal, then. I waited. He stared out the window in gloomy silence. He was capable of keeping up that behaviour for days, but I’d learned ways to snap him out of it. 

“Might you be kind enough to let me know what’s bothering you? Otherwise I may jump to the conclusion that it’s something I did, even though I can’t think of a thing. You don’t want to be responsible for me getting worry lines, do you?” I gave him a look of sorrowful concern.

His lips twitched a small smile. “No, we can’t have that. It’s not you, love.”

“Well, then?” I waited again.

He sighed, swallowed beer, gave a grunt that could have meant anything.

“Kai, laconic is one thing, but I refuse to communicate in grunts. Even Fereldans manage better conversational gambits.”

Once again he showed a twitch of amusement. He finally looked at me. “It’s stupid.”

“Perhaps you should allow me to be the judge of that,” I admonished. “I don’t like seeing you upset, but I can’t help if I don’t know why. You’re also distressing your nug.”

He said, “Mm hm.”

Outside, the clouds had closed ranks, blocking the moon, and the rain had gotten serious about its business. Its steady drumming on the cupola’s roof made me feel as if we were cut off from the world up there. A flash of lightning tore across the sky, followed seconds later by a rumble of thunder.

“If you were waiting for a dramatic crescendo to accompany your response, I’d say that was your cue.” I cast a soft, diffuse light so we could at least see one another between lightning flashes.

He looked up at the ceiling, then back at me. “Fine. But I told you, it’s stupid. I just feel like…what am I even doing here? When do I become an adult who makes real decisions? I’m forty fucking years old and I still haven’t done anything of the sort.”

Have I mentioned that on occasion his thought process baffles me? He’s normally so self-confident that those rare lapses seem almost alien. “How did you arrive at the conclusion you’ve never made an adult decision?”

“It’s not just the decisions. It’s everything. It’s a lifetime of being ultimately ineffective.” He finished his drink and opened another.

I made a noise of disbelief. “Kai. Only you would declare yourself ineffective. You’ve made a career out of being just the opposite.”

“No, I haven’t. Don’t you see?” He glared in my direction, though not at me. “I don’t act—I _re_ act.”

Oh dear. “You acted when you left the Circle.”

He snorted. “After eighteen years I’ll never fucking get back.”

“If you’d left before you did, they’d have hunted you down like a dog.”

He made a non-committal grunt. When Kai sulks he gets noticeably more monosyllabic. “Yeah, well. Say what you will about the mage who blew up Kirkwall’s Chantry, at least he bloody _did_ something. I just sat in Ostwick’s Circle waiting for things outside to maybe change enough that I could slip away.”

“You want to blow something up?” I asked.

He gave a soft laugh. “Occasionally, yes. I’m sure it was very cathartic.”

“And you’re honestly saying everything you’ve done since is simply reacting? What about the Inquisition?”

“What about it?” He looked me in the eyes. A bright sheet-flash of lightning highlighted the planes of his face, glinting in his deep grey eyes, making them appear metallic and unfathomable. “You and I both know I dumbfucked into that. It was nothing I planned or even asked for. Once it was clear I had little choice but to join, I just did what had to be done.”

“You did quite a bit more than that,” I demurred. “Your leadership made the organization a major power in southern Thedas with unheard-of rapidity, and you saved at least the South, perhaps even the world.”

He raised an eyebrow (he’s adept at that). “The _world_? 

“Very well—the part we’re familiar with. I did say ‘perhaps’.”

“Bollocks. _I_ didn’t do that. _We_ did that. All of us. And even in leadership I ultimately failed. The whole thing became bloated and corrupt, and I let it happen because I truly stopped giving a fuck. Father was right. I should’ve found a new mandate. Instead I allowed it to decay, then when the rot became too apparent, disbanded it.”

“Not only had you just lost an arm to the cause, you told me well before you knew about the rot that you didn’t want to continue. If you’d stayed you would have been miserable. If you consider that a choice, it would have been a terrible one. After all, I still would have had to come home, but you’d be stuck in a position you hated.” I paused to smooth my moustache and give him a saucy look. “You must admit, depriving yourself of _me_ would have been madness.”

That earned me a more genuine smile. “It certainly would.”

I pressed my advantage. “You said yourself they could have carried on without you if they wished, chosen a new Inquisitor. Disbanding was the right decision for _you_.”

He ran a hand over his head, briefly massaged the back of his neck. “All right, I admit I couldn’t have stuck with it. I was starting to hate it too much. But honestly, what do I have to show for it? Hardly anyone even remembers my name, so there goes any claim to fame if I wanted it. I’m permanently disfigured; I can’t bloody lie on my left side for long to this day. I still wake up with fucking nightmares. And I still have others dictating what I do.” His tone was flat and defeated.

Everything he said was true, and nothing I could say would change those harsh realities. So I said something that was also truth. “If not for the Inquisition, we wouldn’t have met. I don’t know about you, but I’m quite sure my life would have been much emptier and bleaker had that never happened.”

He said nothing for long enough that I began to feel anxious, then nodded. “I suppose that does make all the other shite worth it. I can’t imagine life without you. Or rather, I can, and it would be desolate.”

“Well, then,” I said with more cheer than I felt. I was deeply touched at his words, but this wasn’t the time to tell him that. “However unnecessarily painful the process, you are _here_.”

“And I’m still just reacting as circumstances form themselves around me.” He scowled into his beer.

I took his left hand and squeezed it hard enough that he’d be able to feel. “Amatus. You’re here because you _chose_ us. And _you_ made that happen. I was the one loitering about waiting for something else to force the issue.”

He looked at our hands, then raised his eyes to meet mine. A small, reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “You mean I blew up your Chantry?”

I laughed. “You did indeed. Will you at least concede my point when it comes to us?”

He sighed. “Yes. I admit if I hadn’t forced the issue I’d probably be living down in Hasmal, cursing the fact that you wouldn’t make up your bloody mind.”

“Then why so unhappy? You didn’t want fame, so it can’t be that. I do understand when it comes to the physical injuries, but you’ve managed to mitigate them admirably. And if you think I’m somehow free of having others dictate my activities, you haven’t been paying attention.”

He gave me a narrow glare. “I really wish you wouldn’t be logical at me. I know all that. At the moment it’s not helping. I feel…Damn.” He paused to swallow beer, stood up and crossed to the windows facing the sea.

The storm had rapidly gained power, the rain now pelting against the windows like waves of pebbles being flung by disapproving ghosts. Lightning flashed, followed a moment later by a deafening crash of thunder. It was dramatic and ominous, not to mention a trifle scary, being in that small, glass-enclosed cupola as we were. I couldn’t help but think, had the meeting been allowed to drag on much longer, I would have been stuck in the middle of that conflagration while making my way home.

Kai leaned against a window, lightning flashes driving him into intermittent silhouette. His voice was soft, thoughtful.

“Other people have concrete professions—even you. People ask what you do, you can tell them. I can’t. I’m doing some things for the Archon, but I can’t admit to that, and once again it was something I didn’t choose to do on my own. The outrider job was mostly an excuse to travel up here. The Inquisition was inadvertent. Even my job as a scrivener was gotten with my father’s help. And before you suggest it, mage is what I _am,_ not what I do. I’ve got talent and training, and I haven’t the slightest idea what I want to do with them. I just have other people telling me what they want me to do, and no good excuse to say ‘no’.”

“Need I remind you how I came to enter my so-called profession? I’m no better than you when it comes to choosing a career path,” I said lightly.

“Yeah, but even before that you’d already decided you were going back home to save Tevinter from itself. Therefore you _did_ choose a career. You _believe_ in something. I don’t know that I do.” He sounded worried.

I took a sip of wine as I considered how to say what I wanted to say. “Amatus…I believe the problem isn’t you, but how you’re looking at yourself and your situation.”

“What do you mean?” At least he looked interested. He returned to his chair, dropping into it with unconscious grace.

“I put it to you that you’re viewing it wrong. You’re looking at yourself through a lens of conventionality, and you—and I, for that matter—are _not_ conventional. You were never going to have the life of an average, folksy denizen of the Free Marches. Your talent, your social status and your natural proclivities guaranteed that. Even if you’d tried, you would have been woefully unsuccessful and hated every minute of it. It’s the same thing I railed against—one could say escaping enforced conventionality is what brought me south all those years ago.”

He blinked, and shifted in his seat so he was facing me more. “You do have a point. But…I’ve got the feeling I’m just pretending to be competent when all I’m really doing is whistling in the dark. For example, I’m supposed to be this brilliant negotiator and strategist, but the truth is I mostly just make shite up as I go.”

I grinned. “And what do you suppose all the people you’re negotiating with and strategizing for or against are doing? I daresay the only difference between you and them is you’re _admitting_ you just make it up as you go along.”

I had the pleasure of watching a hesitant smile replace the sulky frown he’d been sporting. Before he could find another avenue back into depression, I pressed forward. “I’m terribly sorry you aren’t able to have a nice, solid career as a greengrocer or something else suitably rustic, but personally I’m delighted you’re a talented dilettante. It suits you, it suits _us_ , and I guarantee you’re a far more interesting man than you would have been in the predictable life you’re mourning.”

The smile turned sardonic. “I’m being an idiot, aren’t I?”

“No, I expect you just got a trifle…overwhelmed?”

He nodded. “That’s a good way to put it. The things I do have to do—”

“Some of which you can’t talk about, I expect?”

He made a non-committal noise that I knew was really agreement. “That, and when I woke up I’d been lying on my left side and it hurt, and the first fucking thing I see is my arm without the prosthesis, and…sometimes I just get so fucking tired of it all, you know?”

“Oh, I certainly do.” I took another drink and rolled my eyes. “The committee meeting that made me late getting home was little but a forum for the self-important wankery of our two most senior members. An example: they spent a full half hour arguing about whose coat of arms should be worked into the committee’s new letterhead. I spent much of it daydreaming about the sort of amusing chaos a few of your crossbow bolts could cause if fired with precision.”

“Shite. And then you get home to me having thought myself into despondence. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We both have reason to feel tired. It’s not like we had a long and relaxing respite over the summer. If you ask me, we deserve a holiday.”

“You know, it _is_ customary for newlyweds to have a honeymoon,” he said.  

“After we get through this wedding business, we’re going to need a holiday in _addition_ to the honeymoon. I hear the Antivan coast is quite nice this time of year.”

He pursed his lips. “We were just there not long ago. You’d really want to go back already?”

“I’m not devoted to the thought, no. Their wines are substandard and their fashion sense is nigh tragic. Did you have somewhere else in mind?”

He gave me a small, mischievous smile. “Well…I was thinking we should try something new and different. Like Nevarra.”

I raised my brows. “Nevarra? Is this for a holiday or to immerse yourself in learning necromancy?”

“You said when you went there with your parents you never got to go to the catacombs. I’d like to see them too. I just thought it might be more interesting than another beach. I suspect you’d get more out of talking to their necromancers than I.” He stretched and sighed. “At least it’s a very good reason to run away together for a bit. Why don’t you ever use this room?”

I took the subject change in stride, pleased that he’d cheered up. “I don’t know. The stairs are steep and narrow, which makes me feel like the room doesn’t really want anyone in it.”

“The stairs lie. It’s nice up here. Peaceful.”

“It is, isn’t it? Though Swivet feels very hard done by, you know. They’re a trifle beyond his abilities.”

“I’ll bring him up when it’s nicer out. I don’t think he’d like storm-watching. I do owe him a treat for fetching you, though.”

“Indeed. So…we’re up here quite alone, and no one can intrude on us easily.” I raised an eyebrow and gave him one of my best sultry smiles. “We have drinks, no responsibilities, and there’s a terribly dramatic storm raging around us. Has the spectre of doubt been banished sufficiently for you to consider these interesting facts?”

“Perhaps.” He rested his elbows on the chair’s arms, steepled his fingers before him. “I take it you weren’t thinking of merely continuing our conversation?”

“I _was_ contemplating something more… _primal._ ” 

He gestured around us, his expression one of exaggerated concern. “We’d be completely on display.”

I grinned. “Amatus, if someone manages to hover in mid-air three stories above the street in a raging storm, they _deserve_ to watch.”

He smirked. “You always did have an exhibitionistic streak.”

I took the chance on breaking the mood. “So are you all right now? Please don’t put on a show for my sake.”

He sighed and nodded. “I’m fine. Just thought myself into a state. Again. Sorry.”

I smiled. “Rather than apologize, you should allow me to distract you. We can scandalize passing bats.”

He snorted, but it was his amused version. “You’ve convinced me. I could use some distracting. Shall we?”

We stood, meeting in the space between our chairs, wrapping our arms around one another as we kissed. The subtle current of magic that ran through both of us meshed with an ease born of years together, and he felt strong and confident and _present_.

He pulled away just enough to say, “Thank you,” his voice soft and husky.

“It’s no more than you’ve done for me.” And that was all that needed to be said.


End file.
